The worst of it is that so many Englishwomen neglect their natural advantages. They forget their minds in thinking of their bodies, their souls, their duties or their amusements. They are apt, like slatterns, to trot about the material world in intellectual dressing gowns with their ideas in curl papers. This is delightful enough for friendly intimacy, but is calculated to produce a less charming impression in the wider world. But there is hope in the future. The Englishwoman is beginning to study herself more intently in the looking-glass. The result will be what we should expect of an Englishwoman’s turn-out, quiet and workmanlike, neither fussy nor flimsy, but with an unmistakable cut and a richness rather of material than of ornament. But she must submit herself to good tailors who understand her figure, paying them a good price. No cheap intellectual garment off the peg will do justice to the natural graciousness of her lines which, for all their conservatism, Englishmen truly appreciate; and, for all their grumbles, they will not at heart grudge any trouble or expense in enhancing its effect. CHAPTER VII THE ENGLISHWOMAN’S MANNERS The quality, so rare and so unmistakeable, of good manners is more usually appreciated or missed in men than in women: and this in itself shows that the quality is something wider and deeper than good behaviour, which may be required of both sexes. The niceties of deportment, graceful and pleasing as they may be, are of comparatively small moment in human relations. They vary from nation to nation, one preferring to eat with knife and fork, another with its hands; but good manners are good manners all the world over. The Christian ideal of chivalry, at its best, made men exquisite heroes and women exquisite angels, but in its fallings away it turned, for men, the noble practices of knighthood into weapons of conquest for the beleaguering of women, and, for women, stitched the angelic halo formally to the coif of womanhood. Knightly devotion, once an inspiration, became a formality accepted as small change instead of as a choice gift. So decadent knights of a later age opened doors and made pretty speeches to win hearts, while the hearts’ owners permitted themselves impertinences and other licenses in the knowledge that the knights would not dare to reproach them, and as for the other angels—it mattered little what they thought. It has therefore come about that the good manners looked for in men are supposed very largely to consist in those arts of politeness and consideration by which a stronger sex places its protection and devotion at the service of the weaker, and on this supposition the weaker sex, having to receive rather than give, has less scope for exercising similar arts. In fact they are not considered necessary to a female equipment. A man is judged by his manners, but a woman, provided she does not grossly violate the decencies, mainly by her appearance. This distinction was unimportant,